LXI.
Igitur cupido Caesarem invadit solvendi suprema (cupido … solvendi suprema: ‘the desire of performing the extreme honors’; solvendi is objective genitive gerund after a noun of feeling and suprema is in turn direct object of solvendi, the genitive being one of only two case of the gerund that admits an object, the other being abl. without preposition.) militibus ducique, permoto ad miserationem omni qui aderat exercitu (permoto ad miserationem omni qui aderat exercitu: abl. abs. with dependent rel. clause: ‘the entire army, which was present, being stirred to compassion’) ob propinquos, amicos, denique ob casus bellorum et sortem hominum. praemisso Caecina ut occulta saltuum scrutaretur pontesque et aggeres umido paludum (umido paludum: ‘over the marshland waters’; Tacitus’ relish for partitive genitives is not limited to use after plural neuter words (obstantia sivarum, inculta montium, alia honorum, etc.) but extends to singular neuter adjectives employed as nouns.) et fallacibus campis inponeret, (praemisso Caecina ut … scrutaretur … inponeret: abl. abs. with dependent purpose clause) incedunt maestos locos visuque ac memoria deformis. prima Vari castra lato ambitu et dimensis principiis trium legionum manus ostentabant; dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa accisae iam reliquiae consedisse intellegebantur: (prima Vari castra lato ambitu et dimensis principiis trium legionum manus ostentabant; dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa accisae iam reliquiae consedisse intellegebantur: ‘the first of Varus’ camps, with its wide expanse and carefully laid out headquarters, clearly showed the effort of three legions; further off the partially collapsed rampart, the shallow ditch were taken as evidence that the now diminished remnants [of the legions] had taken up position.’ dein: marks the visit to the second camp, not far from the first, which was built at the end of the first day of fighting. The second was improvised at the end of the second day in which the Romans suffered crippling losses; on the third day what remained of the three legions was destroyed. principiis: principia takes its name from via principalis, the main street crossing the camp and dividing one third of the ground, comprising the commander’s and the officers’ quarters, the assembly and parade space, and the storage facilities, from the other two thirds taken up by the rows of tents housing the soldiers. accisae iam reliquia consedisse intellegebantur: personal construction (nominative) in oratio obliqua after the passive intellegebantur, in place of acc. + infinitive; cf. A.G. 582. lato ambitu, dimensis principiis, semiruto vallo, and humili fossa are either ablatives of cause or instrument.) medio campi (medio campi: probably the open space beyond the second camp, where the final massacre of the three legions took place) albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disiecta vel aggerata. adiacebant fragmina (fragmina: more poetic than the utilitarian fragmenta) telorum equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum antefixa ora. (ora: metonymy, ‘faces’ standing for ‘skulls’; Tacitus carefully avoids terms that are too nakedly precise or technical (like in this case calvae for ‘skulls’), and strains after language that is evocative and poetical.) Iucis (lucis: abl. of place with in omitted, as often in poetry) propinquis barbarae arae, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinum centuriones (primorum ordinum centuriones: senior centurions, the ten highest-ranking centurions in a legion, one for each cohort, of which he was in command: they were next in authority to the tribunes.) mactaverant. et cladis eius superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi, (cladis eius superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi: lit. ‘the survivors of that massacre, having escaped the battle or confinement’: unless pugnam aut vincula is Greek acc. (see A..G. 397, b.), Tacitus may well be the only writer to use elabor in a transitive sense with acc. object, in place of prep. + abl. or of dative. See also Histories, Book 3, ch. 59 or Annals Book 4, ch. 64 for more examples. cladis eius superstites: eius, from is, ea, id, normally a personal pronoun, can be found as demonstrative adjective in place of illius.) referebant hic cecidisse legatos, illic raptas aquilas; primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum, ubi infelici dextera et suo ictu mortem invenerit; (primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum, ubi infelici dextera et suo ictu mortem invenerit: lit. ‘where the first wound was inflicted to Varus, where by his ill-fated hand and his own thrust he found death’: the excerpt is in oratio obliqua after referebant; for the use of invenerit and inluserit below, in place of invenisset and inlusisset after a hist. main verb of saying, see note for quorum tot manus unam mulierculam avexerint in ch. 59. dextera and ictu form hendiadys, ‘by the thrust of his hand’.) quo tribunali (tribunali: here probably an elevated feature of the terrain rather than a real platform, unless it be a portable one.) contionatus Arminius, quot patibula captivis, quae scrobes, (patibula …, scrobes: patibula are fork-shaped gibbets; scrobes are inescapable pits for holding prisoners; the best example of such use is the giant quarry in Syracuse (essentially a very deep pit, extant to this day) where the victorious Syracusans held the Athenian prisoners during the Peloponnesian war.) utque signis et aquilis per superbiam inluserit. (utque signis et aquilis per superbiam inluserit: indirect question introduced by interrogative ut, ‘how’; per superbiam: per here expresses manner, as it does in many locutions, such as per ferociam, per dolum, per iocum, per vim, per insidias.)